

GRIT 

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GUMPTION 


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D. V. Bush 






















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GRIT AND GUMPTION 




By 

DAVID V. BUSH, 

*« 

Author 

“Will Power and Success,” “Applied Psychol¬ 
ogy and Scientific Living,” “Practical 
Psychology and Sex Life.” 



Copyright, 1921 
By 

DAVID V. BUSH 



JAN -3 1922 


© "!. A 6 5 4 3 21 


David V. Bush, Publisher, 322 N. Grand Ave., St. Louis, Mo. 
The Lincoln Press, St. Louis, Mo. 


DEDICATION. 


To the countless numbers who with a little more 
Grit and Gumption 
can turn their dreams into realities. 

—D. V. Bush. 



CONTENTS. 


Page 


I. Almost But—_ 13 

II. Have You Burned Your Shins?. 19 

III. Back Bone.. 23 

IV. Be a Thoroughbred... 27 V 

V. “Nose on the Grindstone”. 33 

VI. Blocked . 39 

VII. Keep Up Your Speed. 43 

VIII. Follow Your Love__ 47 

IX. Jealousy _ 51 

X. What Is Your Investment?__ 57 

XI. Have a Vision.*.. 63 

XII. Are You a Grouch?__ 69 

XIII. Struck a Snag... 73 

XIV. Stubbed Your Toe?___ 79 

XV. Adrift _ 85 

XVI. Muster Your Pepper- 89 c 

XVII. At the Telephone and “Mad”_ 95 

XVIII. Don’t Be a Dub- 99 

XIX. Grab a Handle_ 103 

XX. Go On.--- 107^ 

XXI. Off the Track..™-- 111 

XXII. The Hand of Fate.. 115 


GRIT AND GUMPTION POEMS: 

It’s Better to Smile--- 118 

Opportunity_121 

Just Boost and Make ’Er Go_ 122. 

Plan Now and Make the Leap_124 

The Successful Man.- 126 


Misfortune Cannot Break My Back.- 128>. 


































ALMOST BUT 


I. 

ALMOST BUT— 


You almost made a stake, but didn’t. Never 
mind. — Your disappointment must not sour 
you; must not blind you to your own possi¬ 
bilities and the opportunities yet ahead. 

The world has need of your talents, your 
vision, your hope—the world has need of you! 
And you cannot quit because you built your 
air-cast.le, planned your attack and got gassed 
before you reached your goal. 

Your goal is still there and this you must be¬ 
lieve. You must not lose faith in yourself be¬ 
cause you almost put it over, but didn’t. 

Lincoln was almost a business man, but his 
partner left him in debt. Lincoln was almost 
elected to Congress, but he wasn’t. If he had 
been, Lincoln would not have been the saviour 
of his country. 

Washington almost won some battles, but he 
didn’t until the last one! You have almost suc¬ 
ceeded in your project, but haven’t to date, but 
that is no criterion that you won’t if you try 
again and pound away. 

Almost but, has wrecked many a career and 
killed many a man’s future. 

Just because your well-conceived and well- 
laid plans have not materialized this time is no 
proof that they won’t at the next. If your 
whole scheme has been shot through and 
through with disappointment, buck up and try 
13 



GRIT AND GUMPTION 
once more. You have just as many good plans 
in your head as other men who have won. You 
may have had more handicaps and hindrances 
than some other men who have come into their 
own before you, but your joy will be just a 
little sweeter because of your delay. 

George Matheson almost graduated from col¬ 
lege, but—he was smitten with blindness. Did 
he quit? Never! He finished his course with 
distinction; began to carve a famous career and 
he carved it, too. He became pastor of a great 
church, and world famous author of some 
twenty or thirty volumes, which have “made 
all thoughtful men his debtor. * 9 

Mr. Isaac Gans, a Russian Jew immigrant, 
ignorant and “stupid ’ 9 almost got a job as sex¬ 
ton of his synagogue but—he didn’t. Didn’t 
because he had not enough education to keep 
very simple accounts. It would have meant 
fifteen dollars a week for life. He almost got it, 
but—he didn’t. 

Thus he was forced to shift for himself and 
began to sell cigars on the street, soon owned 
a store and up he went. He asked his banker 
one day for a hundred thousand dollars and he 
got it. When he could not sign the note, the 
banker said, “What, do you mean to say you 
can’t read or write? Heavens, what a success¬ 
ful man you would have made if you had had 
an education.” 

“You are mistaken,” said Mr. Gans, “if I 
had had an education, I would be a sexton at 
$15.00 a week now.” 

Almost but—you are disappointed, eh? Well, 
try the next thing at hand and refuse to be 
14 


ALMOST BUT— 


shelved, refuse to acknowledge you are “done 
for,” refuse to let “but” and circumstances 
keep you from going to the top. 

Do not refrain from making more plans and 
launching another attack. When the old Ro¬ 
mans were beaten, they never counted it defeat 
—only a delay in their ultimate triumph. This 
defeat now of your plans is only a delay in your 
ultimate success and triumphant march into 
your own, if you do not quit. 

Try once more. Do not have it said that Al¬ 
most But—ruined your career and success. 

Use you But-Almost to climb. 











n. 

HAVE YOU BURNED YOUR SHINS? 


Been too near the fire, and burned your shins 
this time? I see. You were told that you 
would, weren’t you? Well, we won’t rub it in. 
We’ve had our shins burned too, and between 
you and me, we would like to slug the fellow 
who taunted us of it—if we were big enough to 
do the slugging, and if it were within the keep¬ 
ing of Christian ethics, and psychological rea¬ 
son. 

Now that you have played with the fire once 
too often, the thing for you to do is to apply 
a little ointment of repentance and the band¬ 
age of grit, held with adhesive plaster of stick- 
to-it-iveness, and thus help yourself to heal the 
burn. Forget your scar and go on. It’s all 
in the game of life. 

You dallied with the bait of temptation once 
too often, and here you are, ready to die—but 
don’t do it. There’s no assurance of a comfort¬ 
able place for you in the beyond until you re¬ 
deem yourself. You’ll be ashamed to associate 
with yourself through eternity if you don’t 
“come back.” You can! 

What if you have broken the laws of God and 
man? Down on your knees and confess, and up 
on your feet to reclaim yourself. One of Amer¬ 
ica’s greatest business men, known as a “Mod¬ 
ern Good Samaritan,” who has given time and 
money to reclaim fallen humanity, says, “I 
have always known that with the proper en- 
19 



GRIT AND GUMPTION 

vironment, I would have made a first-class 
crook. ’ ’ 

Perhaps the very man whom you honor and 
envy because of his influence, position and in¬ 
tegrity, was once just as bad as you have been 
—just as big a failure and perhaps just as big 
a fool. Other men, great and good ones too, 
have had their shins burned. You are in plenty 
of good company. But if you think you can 
stay by the fire and poke it (even though you 
have a long poker) and not get burned, you are 
an inflated ego—cosmos—non compos—if you 
know what that is. St. James says, “Blessed 
is the man who endureth temptation. ’ ’ He 
doesn’t say blessed is the man who scorcheth 
one shin and then the other, and continues to 
stay close enough to get them roasted. 

If you have endured temptation, you are 
blessed. But don’t expect too much blessing by 
the fire—its dangerous. 

You have scorched and burned your shins, 
but that’s no excuse for roasting them. If you 
don’t try again, if you don’t make one more 
effort, if you don’t say you’ll conquer and set 
out to conquer, you will be roasted—and who 
wants to be roasted? Not even you. It doesn’t 
feel good, and you won’t look well either. 

Don’t let a little burning keep you from win¬ 
ning. If both shins have been scorched a time 
or two, take the scorching but don’t be roasted. 

“Resist the devil and he will flee from you.” 
Stay by the fire, and he will push you in. 


20 


BACK BONE 














III. 

BACK BONE. 


Did you ever see a salmon or a pickerel go 
up stream? Picture a big water-falls, at the 
bottom of which has come a big salmon. He 
takes a survey of the falls, backs away, takes 
a running swim and starts toward the falling 
water and with a leap goes up over the falls. 
Back bone did it. 

Now, another scene along the ocean: we are 
walking together and we come across a jelly- 
like substance quivering and shaking like a 
leaf in the chilly breeze. The tide has washed 
this substance upon the beach and out of its 
element. It has no strength or power to get 
back to its environment, to its class. That 
quivering substance is a jelly-fish. Which are 
you, a salmon with a back-bone, facing the wa¬ 
ter-falls of life’s battles, or a jelly-fish, which 
the tide of disappointment has thrown up on 
the beach of misfortune and who is quivering 
on the sands of failure ? The difference between 
you and success is the difference between the 
salmon and the jelly-fish—back bone. 

You think you haven’t any back bone? Well, 
probably by the way you feel right now and 
your past experiences, you could make us think 
so too. But we won’t. You’re discouraged, 
that’s all. You thought you wanted to give up. 
You’re acting the role of a jelly-fish, but in re¬ 
ality you are the creation of the salmon. 

23 



GRIT AND GUMPTION 

When God made the earth and the sea and 
all that in them is, He made man, and in man 
He put a back bone. If you haven’t discovered 
your back bone, if you haven’t strengthened 
it, that’s your fault, not God’s. God never in¬ 
tended for you to be a jelly-fish, if He had, He 
would have put you in the ocean. You have 
been made in the image of the Creator and no 
man worthy of the name of “the likeness of 
God,” can play the jelly-fish and be counted 
among the sons of the Most High. 

You are not jelly, but Man. Don’t add your : 
name to the list of jelly-fishes instead of salmon- : 
men, or you’ll make a mess of your life. Don’t j 
mess your life. Leap Life’s Falls and Win. 


24 
















IV. 

BE A THOROUGHBRED. 


A live stock raiser will tell you that a thor¬ 
oughbred never whines. “One illustrated this 
to me by swinging a dog around by the tail. 
The creature was in pain but no sound escaped 
him.” “You see,” said the keeper, “they 
never complain. It ain’t in ’em. ’ ’ 

What are you? A thoroughbred or a com- 
plainer? To know that you have failed and to 
rise above failure is to be a thoroughbred. Take 
your rebuke like a thoroughbred. You have 
joined the club of mistake makers, but do not 
complain—be a thoroughbred. 

To err, my friend, is human. To overcome 
your mistakes is also human, but a human 
thoroughbred. You will agree with me that 
Dr. Frank Crane is one of the big men of his 
generation. Says he, “I’ve made about every 
kind of mistake there is to make.” But you 
wouldn’t guess it when you think of his daily 
reading public of ten millions. Why? Because 
Frank Crane is just what you should be and 
can be, if you want to be,—a thoroughbred. 
He who never errs never wins. 

The world is waiting to place on your head, 
as it has on Dr. Frank Crane’s the laurel 
wreath of a thoroughbred if you will but have 
the courage, patience and the gumption, to 
hang on a little longer and fight your mistakes 
to a finish. 


27 



GRIT AND GUMPTION 

Roosevelt says that the man who doesn’t 
make a mistake is no good. Are you any good 
by the Rooseveltian standard? The only man 
who never makes mistakes is_ the man who 
never does anything. Do something to be a 
thoroughbred, even though it is a mistake. 
Don’t let mistakes make you a mongrel but 
a thoroughbred. 

“Just to prove how much you resemble the 
greatest of your fellows, find if you can, a good 
general who never had a trouncing, or a states¬ 
man who did not make an ass of himself at 
least once.” 

Bacon says that Septimus Severus “was the 
ablest emperor, almost, of all the list.” And 
yet, “He passed his youth full of errors, of 
madness even.” 

To go back to the raiser of thoroughbreds— 
he will tell you that when a barn is burning, 
the horses in the fire that cry out and scream, 
are not the good ones—not the thoroughbreds. 
You cannot afford to be anything less than a 
good horse. 

Of course you are in the fire of trouble and 
misfortune. We know how it goes, but we also 
know what it means to be a thoroughbred in 
such a fire. And furthermore we know that 
you can keep from crying out no matter how 
hot the flames, if you will. We have seen other 
men burned as badly as you—and have also 
seen them come out like thoroughbreds, with 
heads up, step steady, and streamers of success 
flying. And those men do not hold the only 
pennants that the world has to give to thor¬ 
oughbreds. 


28 


BE A THOROUGHBRED 

The difference between men appears in the 
way they deal with their mistakes: a weak 
man stumbles further over them; a strong one 
makes them his stepping stones. 

Arthur Brisbane says, “ Every one makes 
mistakes. Your boss has made many of them 
while he was growing big enough to become 
your boss. The man who succeeds is not the 
man who never makes mistakes, but the man 
who never makes the same mistakes twice. * ’ 

If you are going to succeed, see what is ahead 
of you. Mistakes. But if you are to succeed 
you must remember to be successful you must 
be a thoroughbred. 

The grandest characters in the Bible needed 
to repent, for they often did wrong. Made mis¬ 
takes. Think of Abraham, Moses and David. 
They were not thoroughbreds because they 
were born to the purple, but because they over¬ 
came! Be an overcomer—a thoroughbred. 


29 
















V. 

“NOSE ON THE GRINDSTONE.’ 


You have had your nose on the grindstone 
so long that it is nearly ground off, have you? 
Circumstances, environment, ill-health, misfor¬ 
tune, misunderstanding, failure and a few other 
minor incidents of life have been turning the 
crank of the grindstone while your nose has 
been wearing away. 

Cheer up! If you don’t have enough nose to 
grind more, the grinding will have to stop—it’s 
bound to stop, if you set your leeth and say 
that you will overcome these handicaps with 
which fate has been turning the crank of your 
grindstone. 

Perhaps your particular nose lias needed this 
grinding. As necessity is the mother of inven¬ 
tion, so perhaps grinding is the father of your 
ambition and success. A man has to get a cer¬ 
tain amount of nose grinding to let him know 
what’s in him and how T much he can do and if 
he can overcome the conditions that are now 
turning the crank. You can do most anything 
in life. Thank your stars that the grindstone 
has been turning and your nose has been on it. 

Most of the men in the world, who have 
achieved and whose names will be niched 
among the stars of humanity, have been men 
whose noses were on the grindstone,—men who 
overcame environment, ill-health, failure and 
other crank-turning-circumstances. 

33 



GRIT AND GUMPTION 

But you must know this is for your good. 
You must hold the thought that in the divine 
plan of life, this nose grinding probably was 
just what you needed. Any way you have had 
it—you are having it and the power that 
brought you into the universe can use this 
grinding for your betterment. Affirm that you 
are going to be—that you are going to over¬ 
come and no nose grinding will ever keep you 
from your own. It will only open the way for 
your larger and greater success. 

Do you think that hereafter your nose may 
be on the grindstone, but hold the thought that 
you are going to be the grinder and then you 
can be easy on your nose. 

Don’t surrender to the grindstone even 
though your nose is on it. Some day the grind¬ 
ing must stop and you will be the master. 
Southern army commanders said that the 
trouble with Grant was that he didn’t know 
when he was defeated—didn’t know that his 
nose was being ground. Grant’s generals 
thought they, with only two transports, would 
be trapped at Vicksburg. In their anxiety to 
get their noses off the grindstone and their heads 
out of a noose, they saw themselves unable to 
get away with only two transports and asked 
Grant how he was going to get his army away, 
in case of defeat. Grant had had his nose on 
the grindstone for so many years that he was 
used to it and had the grit to stand a little more 
grinding if necessary. So he let the Confeder¬ 
ates grind until they thought they had him a 
weary and then he took hold of the crank. 
Grant had had his nose on the grindstone of 
34 


“NOSE ON THE GRINDSTONE” 
temptation, poverty and failure, and the grind¬ 
ing had brought out his metal. This grinding 
which makes you squirm today is putting the 
steel temper into you that Grants are made of. 

David is the national hero of the Jews—one 
of the greatest Empire builders of history, one 
of the world’s greatest poets, a musician, diplo¬ 
mat and King—and one of the greatest nose-to- 
the-grind-stoners of all. 

What do you know about nose grinding any 
way compared to some of the great? Take 
Foch for instance. When the poor lad wanted 
to enter a military training school, his family 
had had their nose on the grindstone so long, 
that there was no money to send the future Ger- 
man-Stopper-at-the-Marne to school. Did he 
quit? Did he! You remember the Marne, don’t 
you? Nose grinding experience of the past held 
back the enemy. “They shall not pass!”—and 
they didn’t. Well, such a spirit as that didn’t 
stop at trying to get an education for such a 
trifling barrier as “no money.” The neighbors 
•—a dozen of them—contributed money to send 
him to school. Have you had to sharpen your 
nose on the grindstone by a few extra cranks as 
he? Have you come to the point of taking up 
a collection from your neighbors to let up a 
little on the nose grinding? If you haven’t, 
what do you know about nose grinding? 

Don’t fear, my friend. Just as Foch was 
made through nose grinding, so may you be, if 
you have the grit to endure a few more turns 
of the grindstone crank. 

Just listen to the poetry of Newell Dwight 
Hillis: after deploring the sad fact that “this 

35 


GRIT AND GUMPTION 
September” many boys will give up their school¬ 
ing to find a job, where they can make a better 
living or supplement the family income and be¬ 
cause of the lack of proper preparation, are 
doomed to stay in the cellar of life, instead of 
having a chance to climb to the highest story, 
he says: “Man is like unto a bird that sings one 
hour and the next beats its wings against the 
iron bars. He is like unto an eagle, whose plumes 
are clipped, and fulfills a barnyard career, un¬ 
conscious that it is the king of birds, and has 
a right to soar and look the sun in the face.” 

Just think, because you have had your nose 
on the grindstone and haven’t the grit to keep 
it there a little longer, until you are fitted for 
a better and larger sphere in life, you are let¬ 
ting the nose grinding business mould you into 
a dunghill rooster, fated for a barnyard career, 
when you have the stuff in you to be a peacock 
in the landlord’s front yard. 

Stand the nose grinding a little longer, plan 
for bigger things and fit ycurself for something 
more than a barnyard fowl. Grit will do it. 

Use the grindstone turning as a temperer to 
temper your soul into unconquerable emery, 
which will wear down the grindstone until the 
grinding is only something in the past, a tale 
that is told, and your soul more than conqueror. 

Don’t let the grindstone make a slubberde- 
gullion dunghill-er out of you, but a king of 
thoroughbreds. 

If you must be a fowl, be a “bird.” 


36 


BLOCKED. 


— --- ■ ._ 



VI 

BLOCKED. 


And now you’re blocked again. What of it? 
This is an experience that you need, that we 
all need — and furthermore, which we usually 
all get. According to the scheme of life you 
are only getting what’s coming to you. We’ve 
had our share. 

If there ever has been any feat accomplished 
that is worth recording in the annals of man’s 
accomplishment without a block or two, what 
was it? 

One of the joys of the manipulator of the 
“ fates” of man seems to be to block a fellow 
human’s progress now and then. And note 
this. One of the joys of the said fellow human 
is likewise the joy of pushing on and over-com¬ 
ing, even though he has been blocked. 

That’s it! Overcome, even though you are 
blocked! What are a few blocks now and then 
in this tessellated fabric we call life. Each 
block that’s overcome makes the pattern of 
life worth more—aye, sir—you are worth more 
to your friends, your family, your country and 
your God, if you have been blocked. That has 
stiffened your will power, developed your per¬ 
sonality, made you more sympathetic, more 
considerate of others and more zealous to your 
Creator. 

We need a few blocks along life’s highway. 
Why not? All life is a struggle. The victory 


39 



GRIT AND GUMPTION 


is to the one who hangs on and the few blocks 
you get are all needed in life’s development. 
You may not think so now. You are down¬ 
hearted just this minute, but when the clouds 
begin to lift and the sun of success once more 
rises faintly in the Eastern horizon of experi-1 
ence and you feel the thrill and glory of over¬ 
coming, of the conqueror, ah, then you will ex- ] 
claim with all the zeal of a man who has staked ! 
all and won, “The blocks were what I needed.” ; 

Remember, the Book says that “the race is ■ 
not always to the swift, nor the battle to the 
strong”—it is a matter of determination—a 
few blocks now and then cannot keep you 
down. 

Conwell, who has built up the largest Prot¬ 
estant Church in America, did not begin to 
preach until he was thirty-seven years old. 
Blocked until thirty-seven! He fought against 1 
his convictions, tried to do this, that, and the 
other thing, and when at thirty-seven, he de- j 
cided to preach, his friends said he was too old. j 
Blocked! Are you blocked by Father Time— 1 
age—try again. You’ll win. 

The man who thinks he can is right about it ] 
—don’t be blocked forever! Think right. 















KEEP UP YOUR SPEED. 
















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VII. 

KEEP UP YOUR SPEED. 


You’re doing more than your share of work 
at the office and no one seems to understand 
that this is true. You think that you will lessen 
your speed, rest on your oars and take it easy. 
Hold on a jiffy. If you do, your life’s skiff is 
going to drift down stream, be caught in a 
whirlpool, dash over the falls ahead and that 
will be the end of you and your upward climb 
on the ladder of success. You do not want any 
thing like that to happen to you and we know 
it. Change your mind about “resting on your 
oars. ’ ’ 

Rome wasn’t built in a day—neither is your 
future. Sometime when you least expect it, 
some one will discover your capacity to work, 
your ability to get things done and then, a 
boost and up you go. That’s the way it is often 
done, so don’t begin this resting on your oars 
too soon or the time will come when you will 
never rest. You’ll have to work for the other 
fellow, paddling him up stream while he rests 
in the stern of the boat. 

Charlie Schwab, Andrew Carnegie, John D. 
Rockefeller, E. H. Harriman, James J. Hill, 
Paul H. Morton, etc., etc., etc., were men who 
came earlier and stayed later in the beginning 
of their careers, than the other fellows. They 
climbed to where they are because they did 
just a little more than the next best man. 

43 



GRIT AND GUMPTION 
You’ll climb just in proportion to what you put 
in your work more than the man at your side. 
And to do that you must keep up your speed. 

Speed up. Strike your gait and hold it and 
seme time you’ll run an easier race—though 
you will be speeding up just the same — as 
Schwab and the other speeders. But right now 
you are laying your foundation, you’re run¬ 
ning on your first wind and puffing like an 
overworked gas engine, but keep up your speed 
for the other fellow is right now thinking of 
giving up and when he does you will take his 
place. It’s only a matter of who will work 
the hardest for the longest time. You or the 
other fellow. You stick it out and let the other 
chap give up. 

Your boss may be fooled today. He may 
think that some handsome Beau Brummel, with 
his dignified “airs” and well-trained, oily 
tongue of deceit and suave manners, is the 
man to boost ahead of you. But you are build¬ 
ing the safer way. You are working, getting 
better prepared, while the boss deceiver is 
wasting time and this will be seen in due sea¬ 
son. Then up you go and “out he will went.” 

Of course it is galling to see the boss en¬ 
tangled and semi-hypnotized by the suave 
manners and poisonous speech of the fore- 
fiusher, but that is only one scene—your first 
act of life’s success. Your next “act” will be 
with you on top and going up. So sit tight and 
speed up! 


44 


FOLLOW YOUR LOVE. 








vm. 

FOLLOW YOUR LOVE. 


Vanderbilt fell in love. Poor Vanderbilt. 

0, no! Lucky Vanderbilt. 

If you haven’t fallen in love you have some¬ 
thing the matter with you. 

But be man enough to follow your love. 
When Vanderbilt, the younger, fell in love, it 
was not with a society belle and father Van¬ 
derbilt, the elder, straightway disinherited 
him. But therein was the good fortune, for he 
found himself besides finding a real wife. • 

When he found himself cut off from the 
princely income of his father, he had to shift 
for himself. By losing his life he found it. 
By losing a fortune he won love and made an¬ 
other fortune which was much more enjoyable 
than taking from a platter the fortune his fa¬ 
ther had to give him. He had the grit to fol¬ 
low his love. 

If you don’t have love you don’t have half of 
the joy of life. So follow your love if it takes 
you to a cottage or a palace. Either road will 
bring you to a happy home of your own if you 
have the courage to launch out and take love 
with you. 

If faint heart never won fair lady, a weak 
faith in yourself and the girl you love will lose 
your girl and her love besides. So to keep your 
love and win your girl and happiness, follow 

47 



GRIT AND GUMPTION 
where love leads and you may depend upon it 
that love does not lead one astray. 

Be courageous, of good faith, follow your 
love, and happiness will perch- on your door* 
step, ever after. 


48 


































tx. 

JEALOUSY. 


Jealousy is the adder’s bite and the serpent’s 
sting of the passions of man. Its bite is deadly 
and its sting is sure. 

A jealous soul can find slights in anything— 
a big soul must find good in everyone—even 
an admirer of your wife. 

“You are jealous because your father was 
and you are the son of your father.” Bosh. As 
a man thinketh so is he. If you think that you 
can blame it on your father and get away with 
it, then you will not cease to be jealous. If you 
say, “My father was jealous, but I’ll go him 
one better—I will overcome this hateful pas¬ 
sion”—why you will. 

The psychologists say that you can change 
your disposition. Go your way and do so. 
You’ll have to fight long and hard perhaps, 
but remember the crown is to the victor. You 
must have the desire to overcome this weakness 
and the rest is sure. The trouble with you is 
that you do not want to chase this demon out 
of your front door. You really enjoy the fits 
of angry passion and flushes of jealousy’s tem¬ 
per. There is a certain thrill to having one’s 
soul wrought up to fever pitch. That’s just 
what is the matter with you. You want to be 
jealous. 

It’s exhilaration to you to concoct some 
scheme whereby you can accuse some one of 

51 



GRIT AND GUMPTION 
disloyalty—so that you can be jealous. Come 
away from the fire or you will be scorched, aye, 
burned. Jealousy eats like' a cancer at the 
vitals of the heart, and will destroy the best of 
the sons of man. You may be one of the 
“best,” but don’t take the jealous route to 
show it. 

Jealousy is to the human system what sand is 
to the machine. It clogs the gearings. In Bra¬ 
zil husbands won’t allow anyone to speak to 
their wives. A wife cannot even go out with¬ 
out him. Half of hubby’s time is spent in 
watching with a jealous eye his wife. If you 
want to be a Brazilian, go there. But if you 
intend staying here, cure yourself of jealousy. 
Yes, you can! Think good thoughts about the 
one of whom you are jealous, read good books, 
get your mind off of plans and thoughts of ven¬ 
geance, and determine to conquer. 

Jealousy is in all people—to a certain degree. 
Even in the lower animals. Don’t be an ani¬ 
mal, be a man. 

Mr. Moody tells how he recommended a cure 
for two jealous merchants who were rivals in 
the same town. One of these merchants con¬ 
fessed religion at a Moody meeting, but told 
Mr. Moody he was afraid he would not be able 
to “make good” in his new religious venture, 
because he was jealous of a rival across the 
street, and he knew it, and he knew that he 
could not overcome this jealousy. Mr. Moody 
gave him advice that did cure this jealous chap. 
Pie told the merchant that every time someone 
came into his store and he did not have what 
the customer wanted, to direct the purchaser 

52 


JEALOUSY 

to liis rival across the street. The merchant 
thought that was a pretty hard cure, but like a 
man, he tried it and won. 

Jealousy is a disease and a mental weakness. 
Hold thoughts of kindness, love, good-will and 
best wishes toward the one at whom jealousy 
lias pointed its poisoned-tipped finger, and con¬ 
quer. Don’t blame it on your dad. 


53 




WHAT IS YOUR INVESTMENT? 














X. 

WHAT IS YOUR INVESTMENT? 


All life is an investment. You make money 
and then in turn invest it, in stocks, bonds, 
business, heme, education, and seme time you 
hope to receive interest in kind. So with life. 
The Divine has advanced you this existence to 
invest it and you may expect a return on the in¬ 
vestment, but your interest will be in accord¬ 
ance with how you have used this investment. 

What are your life’s investings? 

George Washington, the richest man of his 
time in America, invested all his wealth, his 
reputation and his life when he threw in his lot 
with the Colonies against the Mother Country. 
Defeat would have meant loss of all. He in¬ 
vested wisely and in return was crowned “Fa¬ 
ther of His Country.” Not a bad investment! 

Thomas Jefferson invested in education and 
culture and his interest in kind is the immor¬ 
tal Declaration of Independence. What is your 
investment in education? Wait, your interest 
is accumulating. 

Andrew Jackson invested in courage along 
with some other wise investments and Jack- 
son’s interest was the Presidency. In 1812 he 
raised a volunteer army which was ordered to 
Natchez, Mississippi. But there was not much 
to be done there, so the Secretary of State or¬ 
dered Jackson to turn his army over to Gen. 
Wilkinson, of the Regulars, which would have 
57 



GRIT AND GUMPTION 
meant practically forcing Jackson’s volunteer 
army into the Regular Army, and Jackson was 
under military orders from his superior. But 
he saw the injustice of such a move and refused 
to obey. Insubordination—and .you know what 
that means in army life—Guard House—court 
martial. Courage he invested and it drew in¬ 
terest. Of course exceptions are made to all 
rules for heroic souls as Jackson’s and instead 
of Court Martial, why, the Presidency. 

Perhaps you need to invest patience more 
than any thing else, to make your life count 
for the most. Invest patience and see the big 
return. 

Beecher says that when a woman prays for 
patience and the Lord sends her a green Irish 
maid, she sometimes does not see that her 
prayer has been answered. Look for a chance 
to invest patience. 

Russell H. Conwell invested in an idea. 
Newell Dwight Hillis, the worthy successor of 
Beecher, has said that he would rather have 
given Conwell’s idea of educating poor men 
and women to the world than any other one 
thing of this generation. 

Conwell had an idea. Pie invested it with 
the sweat of his brow and the love of humanity 
to bring it to pass and he has collected the in¬ 
terest in abundance of love and gratitude. 

What’s your investment in an ideal? By all 
means be idealistic but be the kind of an ideal¬ 
ist who sets about consummating his ideal. In¬ 
vest in ideas, ideals, and then press toward the 
goal by the sweat of your pressing and in time 
the interest will be added to your capital. 

58 


WHAT IS YOUR INVESTMENT ? 

What is your investment? 

No greater returns come than the interest on 
the investment of love. It takes wisdom some¬ 
times to know how to invest money, but any 
normal soul should be wise enough to invest 
love. 

Christ’s love investment surpassed all others. 
In two thousand years see the conglomerated 
hunks of humanity called men at last being 
coagulated into a world wide brotherhood! 
Loves’ interest! 

The servant is no greater than his lord and 
if you have invested love and the dividends 
seem a long time coming, do not hurry yourself 
to make a demand on the Bank, for the Comp¬ 
troller is all wise and will hand out your in¬ 
terest in time. 


59 










HAVE A VISION. 






























































































































































XI. 

HAVE A VISION. 


The world is owned by men who have vi¬ 
sions ! But the men who are going to own the 
world must not have a selfish vision—all for 
himself. Your vision must be for yourself and 
the world—others. When McCormick had a 
vision of reapers in every state, in every coun¬ 
try, he was visualizing for himself and others. 
Get the McCormick vision, and if the world 
isn’t yours, a whole lot of it will be. 

Have a vision. Look beyond today, lay your 
lines for the future, plan for months, aye, years 
to come—get a vision. 

David Livingstone dared to soar to such vi¬ 
sionary heights that most other men were dazed 
by his outlook. What a vision in the days of 
Livingstone to think of that whole continent 
of Africa being civilized! After spending 
twenty years on the dark continent upon a 
return to England, wise men counselled him to 
remain in the United Kingdom—he couldn’t 
do much in Africa, why waste his time and en¬ 
ergy, and probably give his life for the dark- 
skinned peoples of that far off country. 
Couldn’t do much? Look! See his vision! To¬ 
day, only three-quarters of a century after Liv¬ 
ingstone first stepped his foot on African soil, 
there are railroads crossing the continent east 
and west, north and south, and civilization is 
flourishing in hopeless Africa—the desert blos- 
63 



GRIT AND GUMPTION 
soms as the rose. With a Livingstone vision, 
you can conquer your share of the world. 

In 1803, when James Monroe bought the 
“Louisiana Purchase/’ although it contained ■ 
a million square miles and only cost fifteen mil¬ 
lions of dollars, President Monroe was the] 
laughing stock of people without a vision. In 
1910 the assessed valuation of the property was ] 
five billion dollars. Vision, man, vision! 

Alaska, “our refrigerator,” was another of 
those visionary purchases, some people chose to 
deride. Alaska today! Our pride of the North 
cost us only seven million, two hundred thou¬ 
sand dollars. Have a vision! 

When Lincoln, an awkward, barefoot, ignor¬ 
ant country lad, had a vision that he could be 
educated and function among the seats of the 
mighty, he had a real outlook on life. 

First, get your vision; second, pay the price. 

Fulton visualized the steamboat into being. 
Henry Ford used to be called “batty” when he 
preambled around the streets of Detroit in a 
cast-off buggy propelled by something other 
than horse or mule flesh, but Henry Ford had a 
vision and he converted that old rattle-trap, 
bucking and balking self-propelled buggy, into 
the greatest money-making automobile of the 
world. Vision! 

Garfield followed the vision which took him 
from the farm, the canal towpath, to the presi¬ 
dency of the greatest Republic on earth. 

Probably what you need more than anything 
else is a vision of the possibilities within you. 

For three centuries and a half, nations of the 
earth talked about the Panama Canal. Some- 
64 


HAVE A VISION 

one had vision, but lacked the power to act, to 
do, to hang on, to put ’er through. 

Have a vision—you can’t get it too high, but 
be sure you turn into action the vision of your 
dream. Put the Panama Canal punch into your 
vision. 

The prophet has said, without vision the peo¬ 
ple perish. Get your vision, and live—let the 
other fellow perish. 

What’s your vision? 




65 



ARE YOU A GROUCH? 




XII. 

ARE YOU A GROUCH? 


Think you are happy—you grouch? You’re 
not, and you know it. You abhor yourself, and 
* show it by the way you treat the other fellow. 

What has your wife done to be doomed to sit 
at a table and look at the likes of you, you 
grouch, for the rest of her natural born days? 

And your innocent children — they couldn’t 
help having such a thing as you for a father. 
What in the name of the sons of Adam have 
they done to have to call such a crank as you 
11 father ?’’ 

“Father,” to the likes of you, would choke 
an ordinary man’s child. And your children 
are fated to live with you for the best part of 
their lives, you, you old grouch! 

Don’t you feel sorry for them? Of course 
you do. And that’s the reason we know that 
that old tough hide of yours has a heart that’s 
big, tender and soft, but for the time being 
your outer man has made it a pumping piece 
of gristle. 

You don’t like the veneered face of yourself, 
and we know it. You are made in the image of 
God, and not the devil; but right now no one 
would know it—you look like the devil. 

Smile once—that’s fine—smile again! and 
again!—bully! Now you really look decent. 
Surprised yourself, didn’t you? 

Go home—quick—and I’ll bet your wife 

69 





GRIT AND GUMPTION 

couldn’t refrain from kissing that changed 
phiz of yours. If you’ll keep that smile, your 
children and the neighbors will drop in to see 
what has happened to you. 

Smile again, you grouch, and'live! 


70 


STRUCK A SNA&. 





































XIII. 

STRUCK A SNAG. 


Lincoln said, “What you cannot go through, 
plow around.” If you’ve struck a snag, and 
cannot go through, then plow around. No snag 
is big enough to stop you if you will not give 
up. Suppose you do lay your future plans as 
flawlessly as a man could conceive, and they 
have been shattered to ribbons by unforeseen 
circumstances—make other plans and plow 
around. 

Louis Pasteur, at the age of forty-five, had 
a paralytic stroke. Just when he should have 
begun to do his greatest work, he struck a snag. 
He could not go through, so he plowed around. 
The next twenty years this invalid, who could 
not be prevented from going straight through, 
made investigations with this incalculable bod¬ 
ily handicap, worked out the theories of bac¬ 
teriological infection and innoculation which 
have revolutionized medical and surgical 
science. Pasteur was a snag uprooter — he 
plowed around. You and I turned out a few 
years ago to do him honor—plow around and 
get your honor. 

Thomas Carlyle, the poor Scottish lad, 
planned to be a great author, but he struck the 
snag of poverty. His clothes were thread-bare, 
and his shoes tattered. Friends taunted and 
ridiculed him—he was up against a snag. 
Prodded by the taunts and ridicule of his 
73 



GRIT AND GUMPTION 
friends, he cried, “I have better books in me 
than yon have ever read. ’ ’ While they laughed 
at him, he plowed around. 

There is more than one way to pluck a rose, 
just as there is more than one way to dig out a 
snag or go around. It is either you or the snag 
that is going to win—plow around, and you 
win! 

What is a snag compared to the hope and 
strength you have? This snag is only another 
test that kind Providence has sent your way 
to try your grit. If you can plow around the 
stump or snag, you are in line for something 
bigger than you planned. 

When Henry Bessemer patented a plan for 
the use of revenue stamps for the British Gov¬ 
ernment, he was promised a comfortable posi¬ 
tion in the employment of the United Kingdom; 
but before he was comfortably landed in his 
Governmental cushioned seat, there was a flaw 
found in his patent, and he failed—struck a 
snag. But he began to plow around—he did 
not quit, he did not bemoan his fate—he did 
not pelt the heavens with his cries. He went 
to work on something else, and in a few years 
he became the inventor of the process of steel 
making, which made him famous, and, inciden¬ 
tally, rich. He plowed around. Suppose he 
had succeeded with that revenue stamp Govern¬ 
mental job—the primrose path of ease would 
probably have killed his initiative, and it would 
have been Bessemer, the little, instead of Bes¬ 
semer, the great and rich—plow around. 

Lincoln—if he had been elected to the State 
Legislature, would probably never have been in 

74 


STRUCK A SNAG 

the White House. He took his own medicine. 
When he could not go through, he plowed 
around. Take your medicine if you have to— 
but plow around. 

If you would carry out the plans you make, 
it would be good, to be sure. But if you do 
not, plow around the snag, and you will reap 
a larger harvest, and do greater good. 

If you cannot uproot your snag, why, plow 
around I 


75 
















's 













XIV. 

STUBBED YOUR TOE? 


You’ve stubbed your toe a time or two, and 
now you want to quit. Nonsense. Not until 
you have stubbed every toe on every foot can 
you talk about giving up. And then, you 
mustn’t give up—talk about it a little if you 
must, but quit talking soon. 

If you talk too much about giving up, you 
will bring failure by your own mouth—our 
thoughts make us. To think failure is to court 
failure. 

Get your mind off your toes—away from 
your feet. Get your mind on things higher. 
Never mind a few stubs more or less. They’re 
coming to you just as they have come and are 
coming to all of the sons of Adam. You can be 
no exception. Even Christ was tempted in like 
manner as we are. 

You must take a few toe stubs as a seasoner 
of life—it’s variety, you remember that adds 
spice. A few toe stubs now and then is the 
spice that mother nature has in her 57 varieties. 
Be glad that while toe stubbing is in store for 
you that in the divine plan of the Creator you 
will never have a bigger stub than your toe can 
stand. Your worst troubles never come. You 
build bridges before you come to them and you 
get toe stubs in your mind worse than the ac¬ 
tual stubs on the toe. No stub will ever be more 
7? 



GRIT AND GUMPTION 
than you can overcome — no matter how big 
your toe. 

You can put an extra rag or two of gump¬ 
tion and grit around your stubbed toes and 
go on. You may limp for a while, but what 
of it? Down the corridor of success, many a 
man has made his way limping. Aye, some 
have had both toes bandaged. Don’t think that 
you are alone or have a monopoly on the toe 
stubbing game. Through troubles, trials, temp¬ 
tation, unpleasant experiences of life — toe 
stubbing—we discover and learn the laws of 
life and develop character. 

Power is not in your toes, power is in your 
mind, your soul—don’t keep your mind in your 
toes. Emerson says, “He who knows that 
stands in the erect position, commands his 
limbs, works miracles; just as a man is stronger 
who stands on his feet than a man who stands 
on his head.” After all, your feet are to stand 
on. If you have stubbed your toes and it’s hard 
walking, you are better off limping on your 
feet than “Hesitating” on your head. Emer¬ 
son had a few toes stubs and he overcame the 
limp. So can you. 

Phillips Brooks — every one knows Phillips 
Brooks — graduated from Harvard, taught 
school for a while, had trouble with some of the 
unruly boys and was dismissed! One of his 
biographers said: “It was a catastrophe, com¬ 
plete, final, humiliating.” Brooks stubbed his 
toe. But it wasn’t enough for the poor, de¬ 
feated, ambitious youth to have to resign. Oh 
no. The head master added this nice, little en¬ 
couragement by saying to poor, heart-broken, 
80 


STUBBED YOUR TOE? 

Brooks, that he never knew a man who failed 
in teaching, who made a success in any thing 
else. Lovely, wasn’t it? Bad enough to stub 
one toe yourself without some one else adding 
a stone bruise to both feet. Brook’s mortifica¬ 
tion was made complete when well-meaning 
“ friends”, who had expected so much from 
him, commented among themselves and others 
about the failure of Phillip Brooks. 

How soothing to stubbed toes is the heartless 
thanks of tell-tale friends. But Brooks had a 
few more toes he was willing to have stubbed 
before he would quit. So he entered a theologi¬ 
cal seminary six months later and in three years 
entered the pastorate which made him famous. 

Suppose Brooks had had no stubs as a 
teacher. He might have been a neat, well-fed 
school master, unknown outside of the circle 
who poured vitrolic acid, by telling of his fail¬ 
ure, into the bruises of his stubs. That stub 
made Brooks. Your stubs will make you, if 
you will let them. 

Stub your toes but keep your soul aloft! Be¬ 
lieve in yourself until the last toe has been 
doubly stubbed and then hope on and when you 
win, you may thank your toes for it. 


< 


81 



ADRIFT. 








XV. 

ADRIFT. 


Are you on the stream of life, in a skiff of 
hard knocks and both oars of success gone and 
the shore of accomplishment way out of reach? 
Never mind that if you still have the muscle of 
grit, the mind of determination, the soul of “I 
can” and the will not to give up. 

Though both oars are gone, your boat adrift 
with a hole in the bottom, you can reach the 
shore—if you can not paddle, swim! Get there 
some way—yes, you can! 

You can get there even though you can 
scarcely see the shore. The shore of success is 
somewhere off in the distance for you and you 
can claim it, own it, reach it, if you have the 
will to keep your eyes looking that way and 
your determination set on getting to it. 

When Rudyard Kipling was a boy he took 
a long sea voyage with his father. Lockwood 
Kipling, the father, went below, leaving the 
boy on deck. Soon he was aroused by a violent 
knocking on his cabin door. One of the officers 
rushed in and exclaimed, “Mr. Kipling, your 
boy has crawled out on the yard-arm, and if 
he lets go, hell be drowned.” “Yes,” replied 
his father with a satisfied look, “but he won’t 
let go!” Don’t let go your hold. Though ship¬ 
wrecked and sinking, there is something that 
you can cling to, if nothing more than a straw 
—cling! Hold fast, hang on and though adrift 


85 



GRIT AND GUMPTION 


today, you will reach shore tomorrow. Don’t 
let young Kipling beat you to hanging on. 

You must constantly have your eyes toward 
the shore. Gaze idly, you’ll see the breakers, 
lose your grip and sink. Keep on going toward 
the shore no matter how dark its clouds or wa¬ 
ters roar—paddle toward the shore. 

It is said that Gen. Sherman, at the end of 
the first day of the battle of Shiloh, hunted up 
Gen. Grant to advise retreat; but Grant looked 
so firm and determined that Sherman could not 
bring himself to make the suggestion. All he 
could say was, “We’ve had a tough day, Gen¬ 
eral.” “Yes,” said Grant, “pretty tough; but 
we’ll lick them tomorrow.” This is the spirit 
in which any victory is gained, on material bat¬ 
tle grounds or the battle grounds of the soul. 
And this is the spirit which will bring you to 
the shore! 

Emerson says, “He is only a well-made man 
who has a good determination. ’ ’ Be well made 
and reach the shore! 


86 


MUSTER YOUR PEPPER. 










XVI. 

MUSTER YOUR PEPPER. 


Genius consists in mustering your pepper. 
Every man has a certain amount of pepper 
in his system. Yes, you have. The hookworm’s 
got you if you have no pepper in your con¬ 
stitution. Even though you think that you 
have no pepper and the hook-worm has you, 
yet you have a chance to muster what pepper 
you have. 

We grow by developing that which we have. 
A blacksmith has muscles developed more 
than the clerk because he has mustered strength 
to those muscles by pounding iron. A writer 
writes because he has mustered blood to the 
grey matter and developed the talent of writ¬ 
ing. Carry your arm in a sling and your arm 
atrophies and while you are not armless it is 
not much good beyond ornamentation. Muster 
your pepper and you won’t be armless. 

So it is with life—with your talent. To get 
the most out of a life that the Creator has given 
you, you muster your pepper. What do you 
want to do in life ? Be a merchant, lawyer, busi¬ 
ness man or mechanic, drug clerk or preacher? 
Whatever you expect to do, by all means do it 
well. And to do it well you will have to muster 
every ounce of pepper that’s in your system and 
if you do not have enough to carry you to the 
heights of your calling in life, why then you 
will have to acquire some more pepper to mus- 
89 



GRIT AND GUMPTION 
ter and that you can do by mental concentra- 
tion and affirmation. 

The whole world around you, atmosphere 
and all, have reservoirs of energy ready for 
you to tap if you will but play the game 
strong enough, well enough and muster your 
pepper. Whatever you want to do in life hold 
in thought. Affirm that your own will come to 
you. But don’t sit on a park bench affirming 
all of the days of your life and expect fame and 
1 fortune to drop into your lap, carried to you 
by the park policeman. The chances are that 
he hasn’t mustered any more pepper than he 
needs or else he would not be on that beat. 
Hold your thought, but muster your pepper. Or 
as Mrs. Alcott used to say, “Hope, but keep 
busy.” Hope, but muster your pepper at the 
same time. Affirm, but muster your pepper. 

Perhaps you have a family of secret sins 
which is keeping you from doing your best. 
There’s that temper which you say you cannot 
help. Yes you can. But you’ll have to muster 
your pepper to overcome it. But that you can. 
Then perhaps you have a nasty characteristic 
like Abraham, who lied to the Pharaoh of Egypt 
about his wife saying that she was his sister. 
But notice Abraham didn’t continue to be a liar. 
He mustered his pepper and we remember him 
for his good traits, not his bad ones. 

Or you talk too much. Now there we’ve hit 
a soft spot in you. Gossip. Always finding 
something to say that is unkind and mean. 
You can never be much in life with that kind of 
a tongue. Clean it up. To do so you’ll have 


90 


MUSTER YOUR PEPPER 


to muster your pepper, but that’s what your 
pepper is for—to muster. 

What about that oily tongue of deceit that 
you have oiled at both ends? You spread the 
blarney so much that it has become a deceitful 
member, your tongue, and like a two-edged 
sword it cuts your success both ways and you 
are a second rater instead of a first rater. All 
due to that tongue which can kindle so much 
fire. What’s to be done? Muster you pepper 
and oil your tongue with the salve of truth¬ 
fulness and then see success flowing to you. 

You can never get far, we can see that, un¬ 
less you muster your pepper. The nice thing 
about the whole matter is that you can over¬ 
come, you can muster your pepper. Abraham, 
Isaac and David did and you can. 

Genius consists in mustering your pepper. 
Be a genius. 

“The late Senator Hoar, of Worcester,Massa¬ 
chusetts, tells of a toad he saw in his garden 
that ran into a spider’s web. The spider gave 
the toad a vicious bite. Instantly the toad 
hopped back to the lawn, found a bit of plan¬ 
tain leaf, chewed it, and then hopped back into 
the web again. He got another bite, and 
hopped back to his antidote again. Seven 
times this was repeated, but by the eighth re¬ 
turn there was no spider’s web left, and the 
persevering toad hopped on his way rejoicing. 
I wonder how many of us return to a hard 
task seven times?” 

How many times have you mustered your 
pepper? Seven times. Good. But that is not 


91 


MUSTER YOUR PEPPER 


enough, if you haven’t arrived at seven or sev¬ 
enty times seven and then a few more sevens 
for good measure, if you have not overcome, 
keep at it. 

Surely you can do more than a toad. If you 
can’t, you ought to be where you belong—in a 
toad pond. Don’t be a toad, be a genius.— 
Muster your pepper. 


92 


AT THE TELEPHONE AND “MAD.” 


XYII. 

AT THE TELEPHONE AND “MAD.” 


Been trying to get Central for five minutes 
and mad, huh ? Don’t blame you, but the poor 
operator isn’t to blame for shortage of help. If 
you feel like giving her a piece of your mind, 
don’t do it. Your mind may need that piece 
to keep you from going to the mad house. 

Other men have tried to give women a piece 
of their minds and regretted it. If you give 
poor Central a piece of your mind, you will be 
sorry tomorrow. 

“Patience is a virtue, possess it if you can”; 
if you can’t possess it, get a hold of it somehow, 
especially when you are on the telephone and 
the operator is at the other end. “If mercy 
becometh a monarch greater than his crown,” 
patience becometh an angry man, better than a 
scowl. 

Instead of telling Central what you think of 
the telephone system, write the General Man¬ 
ager or some other official. You’ll have the 
sole satisfaction that you didn’t scold an over¬ 
worked, under-paid, patient little woman at the 
other end of the telephone. Scold the man¬ 
ager—he can better bear it and it may do more 
good. 

When you are about to give Central a piece 
of your mind, don’t. If you think you have any 
to spare, give it to the General Manager—by 
the way some systems are managed, they need 

it. 


95 









DON’T BE A DUB. 





XVIII. 

DON’T BE A DUB. 


Do you know what a ‘ ‘ Dub ” is ? Well, what¬ 
ever it is, it is something* which you do not 
want to be—if you have any spunk in you. 

A dub is a fellow—man, women, or what-not 
—who doesn’t know that he, she or it can do 
big things — no vision, no gumption, no idea 
(worth naming), no get-there, no push, and a 
few more no-things that time won’t permit to 
enumerate. 

A dub is a chap who has a job and like a 
setting hen, stays set, and fusses up his feath¬ 
ers when someone brusques in his setting den 
and tells him the world is moving outside, and 
with a little hump or two, he can move also— 
that’s a dub. What are you? 

A dub is this kind of a setter who is sur¬ 
rounded by a nice feathered nest of a job, and 
who hasn’t enough backbone to leave the feath¬ 
ers and strike out for a bigger nest. 

Scientists perform a slight operation on the 
brain of a pigeon. After that the bird when it 
flies turns over and over in the air until it 
strikes the ground and breaks its neck. 

You’ve been turning over and over in your 
soft feathered nest so long that you haven’t 
enough gumption to break your neck, not that 
we want you to break your neck, but we don’t 
want you to be a dub. 

Get an operation on your gray matter of the 

99 



MISTER YOUR PEPPER 

cells “I can,” and “I will,” and you won’t be 
a dub. 

There are plenty of pigmies in Africa—dubs 
are headed that way—don’t go to Africa—stay 
here and be somebody. 

“When life was in the bud and blade,” you 
may have been a dub, but you have plenty of 
time to blossom yet into a Man. 

If you are perfectly satisfied with your posi¬ 
tion, your business, and yourself, you are a dub. 
Don’t be such a thing. Expect greater things, 
plan greater things and be a greater winner. 


100 


GRAB A HANDLE. 


4 




XIX. 

GRAB A HANDLE. 


Henry Fawcett, a young Englishman, hunt¬ 
ing with his father, suffered an accident stag¬ 
gering enough to break the nerve of ordinary 
men. His father shot at a partridge hit his son’s 
eyes, and entirely blinded them. Writing about 
the matter afterward, young Fawcett said, “I 
made up my mind inside of ten minutes after 
the accident to stick to my main purpose as far 
as in me lay.” He kept his word—worked his 
way through Cambridge University, was made 
Professor of Political Economy there, was ele¬ 
vated to be Postmaster-General of England, 
and gave to the British people a generation 
ago the Parcel Post that we in America so long 
afterwards have achieved for ourselves. He 
took hold of his situation by its real handle; he a 
met it as a challenge to his strength and not as 
an excuse for disheartenment. 

What handle have you to grab—to hold onto 
until you reach your goal? Don’t say there is 
no handle for you, for there is, if you will look 
for it. If it has been broken off of your dipper, 
pick it up and weld it on, and keep on dipping 
until you dip your cup of success full to the 
brim. Surely you can! Remember Henry Faw¬ 
cett, grab a handle, and stick to your purpose. 

Beethoven grabbed his purpose handle and 
“waded in.” He wrote his greatest symphony 
and conducted the orchestra producing it when 
he was stone deaf. 


103 



GRIT AND GUMPTION 

Bacon did some of his best work after he was 
disgraced. Grab the handle and hang on! 
Though discredited, disgraced, misunderstood 
and shot through and through, find a handle 
and hang on! 

“It does not matter what you do to a man, 
he can go ahead if he has it in him”—and you 
have! Grab a handle! 

The maimed men in the Great War are teach¬ 
ing us valuable, though expensive lessons. “The 
cripple,” says the Red Cross, “is no longer to 
be considered as disabled, but able, and ex¬ 
tremely able, when given his opportunity to 
prove it. The proof of this lies in his recon¬ 
struction through vocational training.” 

There is a handle somewhere for you to grab, 
so grab it! 

Conwell, whom Charles A. Dana said is one 
of the three greatest men of his generation, 
says that the young ladies would not invite him 
to parties because he had such big hands. Con- 
well used his handicaps and his hands to grab a 
handle or two to make him an immortal. 

“Do what you can. When a soldier was or¬ 
dered to the charge and objected, ‘My sword is 
too short, ’ his commanding officer replied, ‘ Put 
another step behind it!’ ” That means, put 
moral heroism behind all your defects and de¬ 
ficiencies. Do what you can with the handle in 
your hand. 

A few more steps, a handle grabbed, and you 
are made. Don’t lose out because no one puts 
a handle in your hand—grab one and don’t let 
go until you have reached the goal you long 
ago staked out. 


104 


ao on. 



ft 













XX. 

GO ON. 


This story is told of a boy learning to skate 
whose falls were so frequent and severe that 
a woman watching went to him and said: 
“Why, sonny, you are getting all bumped up. 
I wouldn’t stay on the ice and keep falling 
down so. I’d just come off and watch the 
others.” The boy, with tears of his last fall 
rolling down his face, looked at the woman, 
then to the shining steel beneath his feet and 
said indignantly: “I didn’t get some new 
skates to give up with. I got ’em to learn how 
with.” God hasn’t put you here to fall down 
a few times and then to give up. He has a pur¬ 
pose in the scheme of life for you and He has 
given you the skates of misfortune and the 
bumps of failure just to see if you will try 
again. If you will overcome your past errors 
and say that you didn’t come to this earth to 
give up at a few bumps but to overcome all 
misfortunes and handicaps, and finally learn to 
skate on the ice of life, “the God who liveth 
forever is on your side today.” 

Don’t you know that to fall down isn’t so 
bad after all? Who has climbed high on the 
ladder of success without having a few falls? 
That fellow has not yet been born. The men 
whom you see leading in the affairs of life 
have had many a slip on the ice of adventure 
and many a bump on the slide of misfortune, 
107 



GRIT AND GUMPTION 

but yru wouldn’t detect it by the way they 
look up toward the sky. 

You need a few r of these ice cracking bumps 
to stir you into fighting action; to arouse you 
to battle against the tides of outrageous for¬ 
tune and learn to skate. Dr. Crane says: 
4 £ Genius is the inexhaustible capacity for going 
on. Training, education and the like before 
you go to work is valuable; but it is the train¬ 
ing and education you get by and while doing 
your work that counts most. There are three 
rules for success. The first is: Go on. The 
second is: Go on. And the third is: Go on. 
Try, try again. 

“You can’t win a woman by the rules of a 
book, nor can you make biscuits, nor get elected 
to office, nor build up a trade, nor get yourself 
liked, nor achieve contentment, nor get to 
Heaven. Life is an endless experiment. 

Try once more to skate and if you bump your 
shins, bruise your hips, or crack your head, get 
up and go on for sometime, you will learn— 
sometime! 

You must have the faith of the boy that you 
can and will learn to skate. Faith to believe 
that God has a purpose for you and that you 
will fulfill that purpose. And you will. Try 
again.—.Go on. 


108 


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! 7 < 

JL 


HE TRACK. 

















XXI. 

OFF THE TRACK. 


When young, you had ambition to conquer 
anything and everything that dared to cross 
your path to prevent you from becoming a suc¬ 
cess, and today you haven’t enough ambition to 
run to earth a real good job. 

Yes, you have. You only think that your 
ambition is dead. It is not dead but sleepeth. 
You’re on the wrong track. You’ve tried a 
few things for which you were not adapted 
either by temperament or training — things 
which the Creator never intended that you 
should do. You never can make a go that way. 
You’re off the track. 

Jump back onto the right track again. If 
you think that you can make bread out of a 
stone or a fish out of a serpent, you are wrong. 
Neither can God make a successful man out of 
you if you are not doing the kind of work that 
He made you to do—develop your talent. 

If you are not developing your talent—the 
thing you like to do—you’re off the track and 
even God cannot pull you back unless you work 
with Him. 

Don’t say that you can’t. For you can. You 
wanted years ago to be a professional man, a 
business man, an inventor, a writer or what 


111 



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GRIT AND GUMPTION 

not and now you’re a—what are you? What¬ 
ever you are, you are not happy and you do not 
count yourself the colossal success that you 
were ambitious to be years ago. 

Get back onto the right track and give your 
ambition a chance once more to soar and you!} 
]?e happy, be a success and soar. 


112 


THE HAND OF FATE 


XXII. 

THE HAND OF FATE. 


Fate has given you a hard, old slap and you 
are ready to say, ‘ ‘ This is the last straw. ’ ’ Bet¬ 
ter say, that “there is no last straw, never has 
been and never will be a last straw that can 
break my back.” For after all, the last straw 
only breaks your back when you say it can. 
^ay that no straw nor bundle of straws nor 
Hack of straws can ever break your back and 
\ or they never will. They can’t unless you 
let them. 

What has fate done to you anyway that it 
hasn’t done to many another heroic soul who 
conquered after fate had seemed to use every 
means to thwart ambition ? Have you lost your 
dearest friend? So have others. Tennyson for 
instance. Have you laid plans which you were 
sure would bring you fortune and they have 
been rudely wafted to the four winds of heaven 
without any angel chorus to sooth your aching 
heart? So have others. General Grant, for 
instance. 

Have you been almost a success and failed? 
So have others. Phillips Brooks, for instance; 
and this is what he says, “What is defeat? 
Nothing, but education; nothing, but the first 
step to something better.” 

This slap by fate is your upward step to 
something better. 

Were you born in poverty, reared in misery, 
matured in grief and fed on temptation? So 
were others. Lincoln for instance. 

Have you ill health and been gently told that 


115 



GRIT AND GUMPTION 
you stand no chance of climbing the ladder of 
fame. Your health won’t permit. You only 
have a short time to live anyway and any exer¬ 
tion may be the means of hurrying your near¬ 
ing end. So have others. Lord Nelson and 
Theodore Roosevelt for instance. 

Have you been misunderstood; do your 
friends question your judgment and look ask¬ 
ance at your next step? Do you feel like 
Caesar, when he saw that his friend was among 
the assassins, exclaimed, “And you, too, Bru¬ 
tus?” Do your friends shun you? So have 
others. Robert Fulton for instance. 

Have you been ready to quit and made plans 
to go away and try to forget? So have others. 
General Leonard Wood for instance. 

What have you on others when it comes to 
having been rapped on the head by fate? Why 
you have a few more rappings coming before 
you can claim to be in the company of Lincoln, 
Grant, Garrison, Columbus, Carnegie, Garfield, 
Wagner, Lloyd George and a host of others 
so numerous that if you were to count them all 
you would not have time to lift your head, 
double your fist and take a round at fate. 

What you want to do is to look old fate 
squarely in the face and tell him, it, her or 
whatever gender such a thing as fate is, that 
you will not allow him, it, or her to break your 
back, quell your spirit or defeat your soul. 
You are the pilot of your life’s craft and not 
fate. Fate may be a reef or two that bobs up 
around the narrows of life’s experience, but a 
good pilot watches out for the reefs and steers 
his bark safely into port. So can you. 

116 


THE HAND OF FATE 


If you let fate ground you a time or two, 
you want to be on to the old rascal and let him 
know on the next voyage on which you embark, 
that he cannot volcano a reef big enough at 
any place on life’s sea to stop you. 

You are going to steer clear from now on. 
These few slaps of fate are just love taps of 
mother nature to wake you up, stir your dan¬ 
der, prod your soul and shake your spirit into 
action. If you had not had these fate jabs you 
would have become so used to sailing the un¬ 
ruffled waters of life’s placid lake that you 
would have stayed in one spot and stagnated. 
You have to bestir yourself now or drown, go 
down wdth the current, but this last slap has 
aroused you to fighting fever and fate never 
stays long where a man really has his fighting 
fever up. 

Get up your fever and put down fate. 


117 


GRIT AND GUMPTION 


It’s Better to Smile. 


Lose temper, and all must perish; 

Smile, and you’ll put ’er through! 

An angry frown puts you true self down— 

So smile, and dare, and do! 

When your rage seems too hot to smother, 

And the world bears a crimson hue, 

Don’t play the fool—take a moment to cool— 

Just smile, and you’ll push ’er through! 

When you feel like tearing and rending. 

Just pause for a saner view. 

There is naught to gain from your wrathful pain— 
So smile, and you’ll push ’er through! 

Lose your temper, and you are vanquished; 

Smile, and you’ll put ’er through; 

For anger’s the first of your foes—and worst— 

So smile, and dare, and do! 

Poems of Mastery by D. V. Bush. 


118 



GRIT AND GUMPTION 

TOEMS 


GRIT AND GUMPTION POEMS 


Opportunity. 


Opportunity knocks many times every day. 

And if carelessly slighted departs on its way; 

But it never evades you, for some time again 
It is sure to return—and if seized, will remain! 

You must atudy its aspect and know how to take 
Every chance that is offered, its friendship to make; 
You must cherish a faith that it some day will bless 
The dull course of your life, and turn ills to success. 

Believe in its coming with mind strong and keen, 
And be sure that you know it, when once it is seen; 
It may come in the sun, yet look still in the storm, 
For misfortunes may show you its bright beaming 
form. 

Each night the great sun nestles down in the west, 
But next morning returns with the same ardent zest; 
So remember whenever you fall by the way, 

That a new opportunity waits you next day! 

No care is so trying, no failure so great. 

That you can’t find a new chance to battle with fate. 
Watch close for your boon, for it’s e’er on the wing 
And the end of your trials at last it will bring. 

Gain knowledge and courage, seek wisdom and light, 
Lest you miss the fleet chance ■when it looms into 
sight; 

Every minute improve, and dismiss the dull past, 

Nor believe that old woes till the morrow will last. 

Through the star-studded night and the noonday’s 
blue vault, 

Floats benign Opportunity, never to halt; 

It is knocking each hour, and it calls loud and clear, 
So be watchful and ready to answer, “I’m here!” 

—Poems of Mastery by D. V. Bush. 


121 



GRIT AND GUMPTION 


Just Boost and Make ’Er Go. 


Don’t have a face so glum and long 
You look like a baboon, 

But have a grin upon your chin 
Like that upon the moon. 

So with a smile meet ev’ry foe; 

Just boost ’er up and make ’er go! 

Don’t wear a grouch about the times, 

Or business poor and dull, 

Let smiling slip around each lip, 

Away up to your skull. 

Don’t halt, pull back, or falter slow, 

Just boost away and make ’er go! 

Don’t prophesy and always say, 

“The job’s too big for us.” 

Don’t always kick and play “Old Nick,” 

Don’t growl and carp and fuss; 

The one who hopes to make the “dough” 
Must boost away and make ’er go! 

Don’t criticise and shake your head; 

Don’t wear a fearsome frown, 

Don’t block the wheel because you feel 
A little blue or down. 

Scorn all retreat, and don’t say “no”— 

Just boost away and make ’er go! 

—Soul Poems by D. V. Bush. 


122 



GRIT AND GUMPTION POEMS 

When You Are with Me, Then I’m Strong. 


The bravest heart sometimes will faint; 

The sturdiest oak may fall; 

A blast of sin may mar the saint, 

But strength is lent to all. 

The fainting heart is roused by fife, 

The oak by sun revived; 

And prayer may mend a saint’s weak life, 
Blest aid by God contrived. 

But when I face life’s battling throng, 

To know you’re with me makes me strong! 

The boldest and most valiant men 
Have had their weakened days; 

A Robert Bruce once paused, but then 
A spider fired his ways. 

A Charles the Twelfth has fled the field, 
Yet won a lasting place; 

It doesn’t matter if we yield 
If we renew the pace. 

Sometimes I fear I can’t last long, 

But when you’re with me, I am strong! 

A Peter, tempted, falls and cries; 

A Paul has led the throng; 

Something within each spirit lies 
To help to keep us strong. 

Some men may need a martial air 
To make them brave and true, 

But when I’m fainting, I declare 
That what I need is you: 

For when I’m tempted to do wrong, 

Your spirit with me makes me strong! 

—Soul Poems by D. Y. Bush. 



Plan How and Make the Leap. 


Ah, are you happy in your work? 

If not, you ought to be; 

The man who loves the work he does 
Works most effectively. 

There’s something in this varied world— 
Some mountain tall and steep— 

That you can reach; so do and dare, 
Then plan and make the leap! 

Pull many a man with talents great 
Lies prostrate on life’s plain; 

He once began, but felt too weak 
The summit to attain. 

You cannot do your level best 
Or past your troubles sweep, 

Unless you follow up your bent— 

Plan well, and make the leap! 

It takes much nerve and courage, too, 
Your talent to augment; 

But ev’ry man beneath the sun 
A talent has—bis bent. 

Get in your line—you have a work— 
Climb up instead of creep. 

No height’s too great—just know thysel 
So plan and make the leap! 


124 



GRIT AND GUMPTION POEMS 


Plan well, of course, but do thou plan! 

Of course you’ll sweat and pant; 

The road of life is strewn with bones 
Of those who said, “I can’t.” 

The skeletons of men who’ve quit, 

You’ll leave in dreamless sleep. 

Come, have the pluck to do and dare— 
Just plan and make the leap! 

j The one who leaps may wonder oft 
If he did what was right; 

You'll often feel j^ourself “at sea,” 

But don’t give up the fight. 

Your way is long, perhaps, and tough, 
And snares seem close and deep; 

But banish doubt—you cannot fail— 

Plan now and make the leap! 

—Soul Poems by D. V. Bush. 


125 


GRIT AND GUMPTION 


The Successful Man. 


Successful men are always kicked, they’re kicked 
with envious wrath; 

No matter what their line may be on life’s laborious 
path. 

The man who wins is always kicked, they kick him 
black and blue; 

He’s thumped with mud, and rotten-egged; gets num¬ 
ber fourteen shoe. 

Because he’s always on the job, industrious at his 
work. 

Because he plods and plugs away, while other men 
may shirk, 

Because he puts more in his work and gets more in 
return, 

And stirs things up and gets things done, he’s kicked 
by those who yearn. 

The men who set the world ahead are kicked in jeal¬ 
ous spite, 

They lift us to a higher plane, but feel green envy’s 
blight; 

No, matter, Sir, what lives they save, no matter what 
they give, 

If they do more than other men, they’re punctured 
like a sieve. 

If you’re not kicked, I wonder now if you have lost 
your hope? 

Do you play fair and do your best, or sulk and grunt 
and mope? 

If you’re not kicked you won’t rise far; so, man, get 
in the game, 

And let them kick you all around—kick hard until 
they’re lame! 


126 



GRIT AND GUMPTION POEMS 


So do your work and play your game—play fair and 
hard all day; 

And let the townsmen wag their tongues, the gossips 
have their say; 

And never mind their cutting ways, nor see that 
surly frown. 

For in the end you’ll beat them all—although you’re 
oft kicked down! 

—Poems of Mastery by D. V. Bush. 


127 


GRIT AND GUMPTION 


Misfortune Cannot Break My Back. 


Misfortunes shall not break my back, 

No matter what they be; 

I’ll rise above them, every one, 

Although I cannot see. 

If I’m struck blind, of speech bereft, 

Or lose my old time knack, 

I’m bound that naught this side of death 
Shall ever break my back! 

I have no “pull,” my funds are low, 

My heritage most dire; 

My birth and breeding cast my lot 
In Life’s entangling mire. 

But though my health and strength be small, 
Though every grace I lack; 

I swear by God and man that these 
Can never hold me back! 

Full oft I faint from grave mistakes. 

My blunders never cease; 

My debts instead of growing less, 

By leaps and bounds increase; 

Such pains and sorrows tear my heart 
That anguish forms Life’s pack; 

But I’m resolved that all of this 
And more can’t hold me back! 

The heavy load that Life has laid 
Upon my mind and strength 

I am determined to cast off— 

I’ll overcome at length! 

Though curse of Cain be on my brow, 

Though trials rend and rack, 

I’m bound that I shall conquer all, 

For naught can break my back! 

—Inspirational Poems by D. V. Bush. 


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